


Those distant forests

by HelenofTroy



Category: Frontier (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 12:28:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12581916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenofTroy/pseuds/HelenofTroy
Summary: Memoirs of Declan Harp of his 19 years, counted in the present moment.Memories of the one he once was, of the innocence of that time compared to the river of blood that is his lifeis now.What he felt, what he experienced that will never come back.





	Those distant forests

That was another person. When I think of my reflection in the river when I was 19 years old, I see another man. I see a young Indian, leader of a small group of warriors, and the only one familiar with the world of the white man, thanks to my Irish father, who forced me to live half the time among the merchants of the big companies and in be the translator for the Lake Tribe.

That young Indian only had one thing in common with me: that he bore my name and my body. It was Declan Harp.  
Although already at that time the inheritance of my parents about me betrayed my true origin. My left eye had the blue of my father, and the right the brown of my mother.  
Although I wished that both were black, as well as the bats that Samoset and I were going to spy on the winter caves.  
I remember how we used to sleep there in the cold October. 

 

However, the Great Spirit had already decided my real name a long time ago: Black Wolf. I swore before the great oak tree that would always honor that name, my Indian name, my essence, who I really was.  
I decided to ignore my father and get away from the white men´s world as much as possible.

I had been elected head of warriors when I was only 16 years old, and as such my hair was only long on my right side, and my whole head was shaved except for the large black crest. I wore nothing but the loincloth and my fur vest.

I had spent the first 11 years of my life in the miserable hovel of my drunken father, and finally with 12 after beating him he had let me go with the condition of working for him with what I learned from my mother's native town.  
It had been 12 years of working the firewood, the animals of the farm and learning the Bible, because as a mestizo I could not go to school. My very existence was an abomination.

I was the infamous result of that strange lust that drunken merchants of white men like my father took to the tents of Indian women over and over again. They were like their refuge, their whores at the price of balance. How i hated Fort James! I had seen it get up from my childhood. And what had once been a solitary meadow full of buffalo now was a song of urban abomination and greed.

White´s man world. 

There were only two decent white men in that land: the Reverend Howard Johonsson, who had two children much younger than me, and Harry Emberly, the owner of the Fort James tavern, who was alone. He had been widowed a long time ago.

I saw the white girl emerge from the branches while the hunting.  
Her hair in the sunlight did not look red like in her tavern looks now, but golden blond, as if the sun were falling before her head.

At first I could hardly make out a shape, for when she pushed aside the branches of that great bush, she made the shadow that the tree gave us leave our position and dazzle us. 

-Oh ka-ga? -Samoset moody pulled his arrow away, covering his eyes.

-I do not know -I said.  
In that moment when she advanced several steps before us, who felt our prey run, I knew it.

I knew I was lost. Not that i would love her, but i was somehow destined to meet her.

Samoset held me firmly.  
-Don't do it, it's white.  
-It's just a girl -I said-are you afraid of girls now?

-Declan, leave it. It will only bring you problems.

I nodded, letting her go. But I quickly learned that there were forces greater than me deciding my actions. If the Spirit of the Forest let her go there, everything would end, but if she stayed desecrating our hunting land, I should go out to meet her.

The red-haired girl had stepped on sacred ground. Land of hunting. She must be warned and punished. She must have brought us food, weapons, money or maybe whiskey and ask pardon to the Great Spirit of Forest, like many travellers knew and have done before . That was the tradition. That pleased to the Great Spirit.  
Samoset did not want to do it. But both he and me knew it was our obligation. When the white profanators did not want to comply, we just attacked them and took whatever they had on them.  
Women were the exception. They feared the curses of my people, that is why, hidden from their husbands or fathers, they always compensated us.

The girl stayed by the river, watching ecstatically the flight of the great red birds that dyed the sunset like a red tide. 

Then I let myself go. That's how it all began.

She wore a long white dress with a pink bow.  
She was a new arrival. Her clothes were not adequate, and she had undoubtedly been lost.  
Her feet were destroyed. She was limping.

-Hi she said turning.  
She watched me for a long time, but I did not say anything, I just watched her with the same surprise as she did to me. She was the first white girl who talked to me.

Our eyes met, and something in his green gaze was friendly.  
It was not brazen what was between us, as there is now, when she reproaches me that I am a savage again who would do anything to kill Lord Benton, that nothing matters to me.  
What twinned our looks was innocence in that moment. 

-What are you doing here? Outside the perimeter of the fort?-my voice was serious. Too much, perharps. 

-I was tired of seeing my father's workers telling me nonsense. Oh, i´m Grace Emberly-she said extending her hand. I looked at her hand. It was white, like porcelain. There was a small silver ring on it.

I did not do anything. I remember moving my bow nervously. I waited before doing it. I was so rude next to her...as my father had said once. I did not have good manners.  
I was not ready for that first contact, and yet I ended up shaking her hand, attracted by her kindness, and that contact was lethal.

 

Then I remembered that I should admonish her for the desecration.

But I could not do it. There was something in her that calmed my ferocity, that filled my inner storm with peace.

Unlike my wife, Nuna, who would teach me years later what the passion is, with Grace I only knew peace. Maybe that was my condemnation.

There is no friendship or ties that last longer than those that are forged in peace and sweetness. Passion is nothing, kindness is everything.

Even now, Nuna's caresses seem invisible to me, while Grace's watery eyes pierce my conscience.

-Are you the Harry´s daughter?  
-Yes, i´m -she said-and what´s your name? 

-Black Wolf-i said swelling my chest, crowned by a pendant that Samoset had given me, of a buffalo tooth. Even now it makes me laugh that this Indian bloated like a turkey, proud and vain, who felt the need to impress the white girl was me.

-Black Wolf? Oh it´s a beautiful name. It´s indian?  
-Yes...-i said. But something inside me make me feel miserable. 

-My true name is Delcan Harp-i said. 

-Oh are you the son of Mr. Harp? 

-Yes, but we don´t live together, i own to the forest and the Lake people. 

-Of course-she said-i´m lost you know? i was walking, and then....

-You should not be here, you've profaned the hunting ground. You must pay the tribute and compensate us.

Grace put her hands to her mouth, scared to death.  
I tried to calculate her age.  
15 or 16? It was a girl, although her forms said otherwise.  
She realized my impudence, but said nothing. She looked at the ground, embarrassed. She covered her breath with both arms. 

\- Tomorrow I will bring you my father's whiskey and new blankets. Tell your brothers to forgive me, "he said in a tiny voice.

I watched her leave with her broken shoes, not knowing which way to go.  
I could not let her go like that. I just could not.

I was cold, there was no doubt.  
I took off my coat and put it on. Then I took his hand and said:  
-I will accompany you to Fort James.  
-Thanks, Declan-it was all she answered. So I did it. I accompanied her to the place where the white men live. I felt her warm hand, her tired feet that I wrapped in another smaller skin that I cut from the coat.

-Thanks Declan-said again.  
We arrived together to the edge of the forest.

-How can I get things to you?  
Her voice sounded like one of those flutes that my mother used to play before dying at weddings.  
-You will find the way. The Great Spirit will help you.  
-God bless you- she said, letting go of my hand.

I saw her limping away. And I knew soon after. That my eyes would always follow her, that I would always look for her.

I did not want to fall in love with her like that , this would change all my existence and would bond me to the white men world forever. What an idiot i was! Am I not tied now to it ? it is ironic. But i was interested in her, because i was nothing but a boy too.  
Not even when the next day already dressed as she does now, appeared armed and on a horse in the forest.

I whistled through the trees and she cried out:

-I know you're there, Declan.

She was not wrong, i was there, hidden among the highest branches of the trees. I chanted my name in my native language, and she followed it, over and over again until I reached the river.  
Then he got off his horse and I jumped to the ground.

-I thought you never would come back-i said smiling, pointing her horse with one of my arrows.  
-For a moment i had doubts-she said, taking the boxes of whiskey that she should give us. 

Then i left myself go again.  
I was just an innocent boy. My hands were as clean as my soul. And Grace made her cleanse even more.  
In less than a week we ran together and cleaned the skins away from my camp. Samoset knew it, but he did not say anything to me. Every day i waited for Grace, as the sun waits for the flowers to open.  
I talked about my people and she about her. She told me about things and machines that I did not even know existed. She brought me oranges and papayas, and I tried the fruit next to her.  
And more food that I did not know either.

I lived with her moments that I never dreamed could be lived. Our friendship was full. I sat on her lap and she read me Shakespeare's poetry and even Homer's Hymns, and even more, the Iliad that I loved for its warrior passages. She was part of that world that was my world too, the white men´s. She was white, but everyday I felt closer to her. Every day I felt that my body wanted to touch more of Grace's. I wanted to join my hands to hers. I wanted to kiss her in the face, and this last one I got on the same day that she said she would leave until next winter.

-Grace, I do not want you to go -I said one day suddenly, because the school season for girls started soon.

-I´m sorry, Declan i must go-she said-but i´ll come back soon. 

Then i changed our friendship with a single gesture. A reprehensible gesture that I should not have made, and which I never regretted.

I kissed her on the cheek before leaving, but she did not move away. His green eyes looked down at my long hair, and he touched it trembling, so awkwardly that she smiled.

Then I put my face close to Grace's. But I did not kiss his cheek this time, but his lips. Was an innocent kiss, but long and true. There was no lust in him, no evil.  
My kiss spoke for me. It said how much her company i wanted, how I liked to be with her, to hear her words, to touch her skin. She was a good friend, a beautiful woman, maybe too much. 

I felt the softness of his embrace, before she left for a year. 

When she came back, then the one that was lost was her.

I searched for weeks among the people of Fort James, going to negotiate with the new merchant named Lord Benton, whom my father recommended to me. He made me one of his main businessmen.  
I was 20 already.  
My tribe introduced me to the love of my life, Nuna during Grace's absence. But yet my young mind was cloudy because my childish falling with Grace. Truth or not i was in love with my white friend. Only now i know that was only a young fantasy. But even now I can not deny the strength that that so-called chimera of mine with Grace throbbed in my chest, stuck to my heart like a burn.

But nothing made my friend go out of my mind. Not the one that later was my whole existence, Nuna.  
I loved Grace's presence when she stepped with her boots on my foot to make her presence felt.  
-I will not leave anymore-she said.

I was already promised with Nuna, but I could not help what happened when Grace came back. My father and Grace's father warned us, how dangerous and few recommendable was our relationship. But it happened. 

Was the same day that Grace came back. 

I did not speak to her of Nuna. I did not want give up what she wanted give me. To herself to me. I was selfish and liar. I never shoulded do that.  
Grace throbbed in my chest, stuck to my heart like a burn.  
We both got carried away in the same cave where the bats nested.

She was mine, and my inexperienced hands caressed her white back, and my nose was enraptured with the silk of her red hair. I died inside her to be born as the man I am now, Delcan Harp, while cradling her in my arms.

Then we ran among the trees, she tried to run away, but could not. That day she was mine. But we were young, we were idealistic and innocent. We were anothers. I loved Nuna later, because she offered me a real world, she was like me, her skin like the mine, her dreams too, Grace´s destiny was beyond any young feeling that i´d feel for her. The fantasy of my feelings for her were retained in those forest thought the which we ran away of all the scruples of a horrible world forged by the white men whom she owned. All was decided between us. 

Only Grace Emberly knew the best about that boy I once was. When even the passions had not shaken my soul & nor had th heaven condemned me. Grace read my love for her in my clean eyes, not full of blood and I saw what I still see now in her own eyes, the peace that she will always offer me.


End file.
